One legend holds that Saint Valentine was a priest who continued to perform marriages in secret after Roman emperor Claudius II outlawed marriage for young men, believing that single men were better soldiers. Valentine was put to death for his disobedience but became the patron saint for lovers. Nearly two millennia after Valentine tried to perpetuate marriage, it is again on the decline.
Author: Devon Herrick
NIH Spends $189 Million to Study What We Should Eat
The NIH is spending $189 million on a landmark study to precisely determine what you and I should eat. The study involves 10,000 volunteers, who will spend weeks and months recording their diets. According to the Wall Street Journal, 500 study participants will live in scientific facilities where they can be intensely monitored. The 500 will be tethered to blood glucose monitors and other measures to determine how each diet affects them.
Medicare Fraud is too Easy (and Widespread)
Late last summer Pamela Ludwig, owner of a Franklin, Tennessee firm that goes by the name Pretty in Pink Boutique, began receiving calls from angry Medicare enrollees across the country. The seniors were mad that their Medicare accounts had been charged for urinary catheters they did not need, nor had received. About the same time 1,300 miles away in El Paso, Texas Erika Tavarez too began receiving angry emails and then a visit from the FBI. She had recently sold a durable medical equipment business, also called Pretty in Pink, that provided prothesis for breast cancer survivors.
Does Society Hate Old People?
Kaiser Health News (now called KHN) published an article titled, “Do We Simply Not Care About Old People?” The inflammatory headline was about the high death toll of older adults from covid, saying:
The covid-19 pandemic would be a wake-up call for America, advocates for the elderly predicted: incontrovertible proof that the nation wasn’t doing enough to care for vulnerable older adults.